1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments are directed to an optical device and associated methods. More particularly, embodiments are directed to an optical device having at least one replicated surface and associated methods.
2. Description of Related Art
There are advantages and disadvantages to most types of materials used to make optical surfaces, i.e., surfaces having optical power, both in manufacturing and performance. For example, polymer materials may allow a wide variety of shapes to be accurately realized, and may provide more degrees of freedom in making wafer based optical elements. However, such materials may suffer from high temperature dependence of optical characteristics, e.g., refractive index, and mechanical characteristics, e.g., diameter. Further, when a thickness of polymer material needed to create a specific lens design increases, excessive shrinkage may occur. In contrast, while glass has a relatively low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and a low optical thermal coefficient, when sags of glass lenses increases and a number of lenses to be created simultaneously increases, non-uniformity of the lenses may increase, reducing yield depending upon manufacturing techniques employed.
Therefore, there is a need to create optical elements on one substrate surface including optical surfaces that combine advantages of more than one material and/or type of material. Additionally, there is a need for lenses of different refractive indices which may allow more compact design, more design freedom, and/or better performance to be realized.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention, and therefore it may contain information that does not form prior art.